The Cage
by RoboHippie
Summary: Energon scouting gone wrong, 4 decepticons found themselves trapped and kept as pets by an alien race. How will they cope with that? Will they ever get back? Lot of insanity ensured!
1. Prologue

Hey there! I'm RoboHippie and I am completely new to fanfic writing. I have been reading TF fanfictions for quite a time but never had the courage to write my own. But I had some ideas, so I figured why not? Please note that English is NOT my native language so I am in need of Beta! Also, I have no idea if this story is good or bad, if I should continue or not, so please, let me know.

Characters: Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Rumble, Astrotrain

Disclaimer: Transformers not mine! Theyre Hasbro's!

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><p><em>Captain's log, 3 joors after leaving the Earth's solar system:<em>

_So far there have been no problems regarding our journey, not that I would expect any under my command. We're travelling at decent speed, using only needed amounts of energy. At this rate we should arrive to our destination in about 3 megacycles at worst, our destination being the unnamed planet located in sector Vega which is known for its large energon reserves. The planet itself hasn't been explored yet...well it should have been, but thanks to some very sad events (the war) there has never been another opportunity to do so. Anyway, from the readings provided by planetary explorers from the Golden Age the planet's mass is four times bigger than the mass of Cybertron but otherwise its properties are very similar to the fourth planet of the Earth's solar system- uninhabited, dry, plain and pretty much boring._

_But we don't need the planet to be exciting to serve our cause, now do we? I and the rest of my assigned crew have been ordered by our great leader to analyze the energon this planet possessed, _

_find out if it is minable, if it provides enough energy to satisfy even our greedy lordship, collect some samples then further examine them back in the Nemesis in my laboratory._

_But even if I feel really nostalgic about this mission I have to say it is unbelievably stupid. We are in the middle of a war! That is not a time for an off planet energon scouting._

_I told Megatron that I am needed at base in case the Autobots attacked but nooooo...He never listens to me! He said they didn't need me at base at all, that it would be much better without me. Pffft! Seriously? The Decepticons are just a bunch of empty helmed metal buffoons that are gonna wreak havoc as soon as there is no one to look after them...The status of our so called army is worse than shameful. If I were-_

"Is this the report you're supposed to write for Megatron?"

Starscream almost jumped at the sound of Thundercracker's voice so close to his audioreceivers. He hadn't noticed his wingmate sneaking up on him or reading his datapad over his shoulder. Thundercracker could be too quiet for his liking, as much as Skywarp could be too loud. Really couldn't his wingmates be somewhere in between?

"It was...until I renamed it to Starscream's awesome secret diary." he snapped."And don't you have anything better to do than to stick your nasal plating into my personal stuff?" he added when he saw his trinemate wasn't going to go away. Sometimes he could be as annoying as Skywarp.

"I don't, actually. And before you ask me- no, I can't go bother the others. Skywarp is having another staring contest with Rumble and I am not gonna start about our dearest Choo-Choo, he is so annoyed with his cargo right know that I wouldn't be surprised if he threw us out and flied back to Earth alone." And there went his peaceful alone time. He decided to take a look at his crew's status. After all a good captain should check up on his subordinates plus, it won't take him much of time since there are only four of them.

He subspaced his datapad and made his way to the furthest corner of the cargo bay where two of his subordinates were sitting and staring at each other. Well at least Skywarp was staring, he couldn't tell with Rumble's visor if he was or not. Neither of them noticed him when he stopped right next to them (or they pretended not to) and waved his servo between their faces. They were so absorbed in their immature game that even snapping his fingers or clapping his hands next to their audios didn't cause any reaction. The Air commander casted a quizzical look at Thundercrackrer who just shrugged in return. He walked back to his seat next to his blue trinemate, sat down and sighed heavily.

"Do you think he would notice if Rumble fell into recharge?" Not exactly a rhetorical question, he suspected Rumble has already done so, judging from his slow inhaling. It was a little sad but also greatly amusing that a grown mech like Skywarp could be fooled by such a little pipsqueak like Rumble. Well they all knew Skywarp wasn't a smart mech but they hoped he wasn't that dumb. After all he's a part of the elite trine and he should be a little representative. But Starscream had to admit Skywarp was a skilled Seeker. He was fast, had no problems with complicated maneuvers and his warping abilities could be quite useful sometimes. If only he used his processor for something more justified than his stupid pranks...life would so much easier for everyone. Too bad he couldn't sit still for more than 10

astroseconds, claiming it was exhaustingly boring and proceeding to bounce around the room instead...shame.

Thundercracker looked back at him weirdly. "Well, we're talking about Skywarp here..." he then hummed thoughtfully, pretending the question was a hard one to answer."...so, no, of course he wouldn't!" His tone indicated it was the most obvious thing in the universe...which was actually truth.

"I see. In that case there is a chance this silence, in which I am able to hear my own thoughts for once, could last even longer. And I am not going to complain about that." he concluded and Thundercracker

found himself agreeing with his commander for once. Usually when 'Warp and the purple casseticon were together the unfortunate mech who just happened to be near them slowly lost his sanity. Skywarp was obnoxious, Rumble was obnoxious, together they created a huge ball of obnoxiousness. Easy mathematical equation. So he was grateful for the little amount of quiet and peace presented to him.

Sure, he and 'Warp were the best of buddies...sometimes...but sometimes he just couldn't stand him. He tried to be patient with him, he really did because he honestly thought his trinemate had a screw loose but everybody has a breaking point. His came when Skywarp teleported under his berth in the middle of a night, claiming the Constructicons were after him because he poured something in their energon and now there was pink foam flowing from their mouths. Since then he refused to have anything in common with Skywarp's stupidity.

"YOUUU CHEATERRRRRRRRR!" Well, speaking of the devil...Thundercracker turned his head to see Skywarp looming over the still sitting cassette who was just grinning wickedly up at him. And they thought 'Warp wouldn't notice, they have underestimated his genius.

"Hey! It's not my fault you fell for it! Besides," Rumble grinned even more. "you shouldn't trust a Decepticon. I thought even you knew that!" At that Skywarp released a mighty roar and hurled himself at the midget. Rumble, quick to react, dodged the attack and proceeded to run around the cargo bay, Skywarp of course chased after him screaming many kinds of insults and promises of painful deactivation.

_What have I done to deserve this,_ Starscream thought bitterly. He realized this might not be the vacation he had been hoping for for the past 127 vorns. He rubbed his temples with his fingers trying to ease the helmache brought to him by his team. Unlike him Thundercracker seemed to be amused by the show. The blue jet was clutching his torso in a hysterical fit of laughter. The laugher, by the way, with Thundercracker's deep voice sounded extremely weird.

"Ya can't catch mee you big dumbaft!" the cassette mocked before seeing Skywarp jump at him. He jumped to the side resulting in the purple jet smashing his faceplates to the floor. "HAHAAA! Too slow!"

"Just wait shrimp! After I catch you I'm gonna dismantle you then melt your parts together randomly and give you as a present to Soundwave for his construction day! Even if I don't know when that is…" The thread didn't seem to scare Rumble at all as he stuck out his tongue and ran away. Skywarp was immediately after him. They ran around in identical circles, not minding Thundercracker laughing at them and ignoring the racket they were making.

"STOP THAT YOU SLAGGERS!" a loud and furious sounding voice echoed all around them, making everything stop. "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW WEIRD IT FEELS WHEN SOMEONE IS RUNNING INSIDE OF YOU! I MIGHT JUST PURGE YOU OUT IN THE COLD SPACE IF YOU WON'T QUIT!" their shuttle made himself known, acting as the voice of reason. Astrotrain didn't like it when people forgot he existed. And that happened quite a lot. They treated him like an ordinary lifeless shuttle when he was transporting them. And that sucked…

Skywarp made a disgusted noise imagining the feeling of little mechs running inside his innards. For the first time he pitied the shuttle. But being himself he couldn't let that show. He was opening his mouth to say something insulting when a servo grabbed his wing and he was being dragged away. He looked over his shoulder to see his commander wearing a serious face. Very serious.

"Hey Screamer, whatcha doing! Let me go!" and surprisingly Starscream did so…but only to slap him across the face. The air commander's face changed into a very angry expression.

"First, don't call me that! Second, stop acting like a sparkling! You're a grown mech for Primus's sake!" the red jet shrieked. "You will spend the rest of your trip in the corner, facing the wall and being completely silent! The same goes for you, midget! You will ignore each other for the rest of the mission am I clear?"

"But Sta-"

"NO BUTS! I am in charge here and you will do as I command! Go in to your respective corners!" he screamed, his optics sparking with rage. The two culprits made their ways to their designated seats. They didn't want to but they knew when to stop playing with Starscream's temper.

The red seeker stomped back to his seat, sitting down heavily and ignoring Thundercraker's silent clapping. He took out his datapad and wrote a single sentence in.

_We are not going to make it back to Earth…_

_To be continued..._

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><p><em>AN: This is just a prologue, I'll get to the point in next chap...if you want me to...<em>

_So what you think? Like it? Hate it? Written terribly? Too OOC? Let me know what you think and if I should continue :D._

_Love ya!_


	2. Chapter 1

Heya everyone! I'm back! I wanna thank everyone for the feedback-love ya guys! Hope you'll like this chapter, I had a lot of troubles writing it. If you found any mistakes please let me know! Also this chapter has less humor in it and more _drama_...Muhehe!

I'm still in need of Beta-I'm Czech-a lame excuse for my bad writing XD.

Characters: Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Rumble, Astrotrain

Disclaimer: Transformers are not mine!

Happy reading!

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><p>"Are we there yet?"<p>

"No."

Skywarp sighed. He was getting bored. In fact he was dying from boredom. He felt like they had been walking for ages, even if it had been just a few breems. The planet they had landed on had proven itself to be very dull, as Starscream had told them when they were getting ready for the touch-down. Wherever he looked there were rocks, sand, dust and rocks. And it was getting on his nerves.

"Are we there yet?" he had to try again.

"No."

He heard a little amount of irritation creeping itself into the voice of his commander, so he decided not to push his luck. Starscream was walking in front of the group with a scanner in his hand. He was holding it in front of himself, moving his hand from side to side to properly examine the walls of the canyon they were in. Oh, yes. A canyon. A frighteningly deep canyon to be exact. They had descended here right after their landing because of the unpleasant conditions prevailing on the planet's surface. The surface was completely flat and covered in sand which hadn't been the problem. The problem had been the wind storm which Starscream had called "an unexpected atmospheric anomaly". So they had hidden themselves here. Starscream had also said it would be more presumable for the energon to be here rather than on the surface.

But Skywarp saw no energon. It wouldn't surprise him if they found none and had to return to the Nemesis empty-handed because his air commander mistook this planet for another one. He pictured Megatron's face when given this information and it made him giggle. That earned him a "what the slag" look from Thundecracker. He shrugged and tried to find something other to look at than the rocks. He bent his helm backwards and looked up to see a zigzag line of light, the line symbolizing the end of the canyon and the begging of the sky. The line was very thin which made him think of how deep below the surface they actually were.

He shrugged in discomfort trying to put this thoughts aside. As a seeker he had a natural claustrophobia and being this far from the sky made his wings itch. The sky provided only a little amount of light for the bottom of the canyon which shouldn't affect him since he possessed night vision but it still made him nervous. There was also a large amount of lateral tunnels and troughs which made the place look like a labyrinth. It made him think that he might get lost but that was ridiculous since they were walking in tight formation and he could flight up to the surface anytime. But it still made him feel uncomfortable. This planet wasn't boring for him anymore, it got scary. He wanted to go home.

"Are we there yet?" he asked again hoping he might get a positive answer.

Starscream seemed to sense the nervousness from his voice. "I think we're almost there." And he was right.

After another breem of walking the walls seemed to be getting further from each other. The canyon itself getting wider and more light from the surface was seeping there. Skywarp relaxed a little. The more spacious it got the better for his claustrophobia. He noted that both his wingmates seemed to calm down too judging by the way their wings flickered. He looked up to see the line of light got wider too and allowed himself a little smile. However, walking while not looking where he was going was a bad idea. He realized that as he his face smacked into the back of Astrotrain.

"Ouch!" he hissed as he rubbed his nasal plating hoping he didn't bend it. "Watch it, Choo Choo! Why did you stop?"

When he got no answer he stomped his way around the shuttle and he wanted to snarl something nasty to him. But he didn't when he saw the shuttle's expression. His jaw was down, mouth wide opened and his optics stared somewhere behind him. Wondering what surprised him so much he turned his head to look where the shuttle was looking. And the sight made his jaw drop.

There were crystals. Energon crystals of various sizes and colors sticking from the ground and the walls. They were everywhere. There were so much of them he thought the energon from them would last them for vorns. Millions of vorns! The light from the surface was refracted by them to various colors, in which the walls seemed to sparkle. Even the annoying particles of dust flying in the air were glittering. It looked almost magical. Almost, because he didn't believe in magic. Still the sight made his spark melt. Thanks to this discovery the Deceptions might never starve from the lack of energon again. They would be able to function on full capacity again which could win them the war. The thought made him so happy he felt like he'd start to bounce around the place but he didn't want to break the stunned silence.

"What now, commander?" in the end it was Rumble who broke the silence, asking Starscream for the next course of action.

Said jet turned around and cleared his vocals. He was trying to hide his enthusiasm but he couldn't. He couldn't suppress the smile that made its way on his faceplates. He used to explore planets for a great amount of time but never came across something so…stunning. It made him happy and proud this mission had turned out to be a huge success.

"I'm going take a closer look at the crystals and take some samples. Then we're going to leave." he said and started typing something into his scanner.

"And what about us? You got any orders for us?" Skywarp asked. Starscream looked up from his scanner to take a look at his crew. Skywarp looked ready to bounce and Rumble was just as exited. The all were looking at him hopefully, surely wanting to explore the place themselves. He had no reason to deny their wish.

"Just…" he waved his hand dismissively. "…don't get lost." He said turning to make his way to one of the crystals. He heard Rumble and Skywarp screaming excitedly and running further the canyon. Thundercracker and Astrotrain also departed but in a more dignified matter.

"It is soooo shiny!" he heard Skywarp's voice echo in the canyon before there was complete silence. He sighed appreciatively and walked to his chosen crystal. It was one of the smallest here, but it still had a diameter of about eight meters. He ignited his thrusters to fly to the top of the crystal. He took out laser scalpel and cut a few pieces of. He putted one piece into a compartment of his scanner and waited for it to analyze the chemical composition of the sample. The results surprised him. The energon was almost pure, with minimal amounts of undesirable impurities and that was very unusual. Under normal conditions any naturally occurring form of energon had to go through a number of various cleaning processes until it was safe to use it. However this energon sample was safe for use as it was, it only needed to be converted the liquid state. '_I found a treasure.'_ he thought.

Starscream flew back to the ground. Since he had collected the samples he needed, he wanted to tell his crew over the comm.-link that they were ready to leave. But something caught his optic.

There, in the darker side of the canyon, sat a lone crystal, glittering softly from the lack of light. That alone wasn't what aroused Starscream's interest. There was a major problem with it. It was broken. As far as he knew, there was no reason for a crystal of that size to break. The planet didn't have any signs of geological instability, thus no earthquakes. A shiver ran down his back strut as a thought hit him. He walked to the crystal and sat at the base of it. He ran his hand over the area where the crystal broke. The surface was completely smooth, which wouldn't have been possible if it had been broken under the influence of natural forces. He had been right. The crystal hadn't broken in half on its own, it had been cut in half. But that would mean _someone _had cut it. The fact that there was no sign of the other half of the crystal only made this hypothesis more likely.

Starscream shook his head. '_That doesn't make any sense!'_ The reports he had studied stated there wasn't any form of life inhabiting the planet and that no Cybertronian had ever stepped on the surface of it. Maybe the reports were wrong. Maybe there were living beings here that possessed technology developed enough to make a cut perfect like that. Something like his laser scalpel…

"Starscream!" Thundercracker's voice roused him out of his musings, startling him effectively. His wingmate seemed to make a habit from that…

"What do you want?" he asked not even turning around to face the other jet. He didn't want to talk to Thundercracker right now and his presence would only annoy him. "I'm busy."

"You need to come with me," the blue jet said, sounding rather urgent and…panicked. "I have to show you something."

"I said I'm busy. I have neither the time nor the mood to go and see your _amazing _discovery. Show it to Skywarp." he brushed his wingmate off, wanting to return to his previous activity. But Thundercracker was resilient. He grabbed his arm and pulled, making Starscream turn around and face him. The red jet growled at him but stopped when he saw the other's faceplates. Thundercracker's optics were full of fear.

"I'm serious, Starscream. You need to see this."

The air commander frowned, finding his subordinate's behavior peculiar, but in the end nodded and followed the blue jet when he ignited his thrusters and flew back from where he came. As they flew further and further Starscream noticed, with a sinking feeling in his spark, there was more and more of the cut off crystals, all of them cut at their bases like the one he found. When they arrived to a crossroad Thundercracker took a turn to left, choosing one of the lateral troughs. And they came to their intended destination. If Starscream wasn't panicking before, now he definitely was.

There in the wall in front of them was a gate. An enormous gate. In fact it was so huge that Devastator with Bruticus standing on his shoulders wouldn't have had any problems going through. And it was open. Through it they could see a dark descending hall with walls made from dark metal. The hall was dimly lit by purple lights aligned on each side of the hall. They couldn't see where the hall lead to, but Starscream himself didn't want to know.

"Ehm…" Thundercracker again disturbed his thinking by clearing his vocals. He regarded his colleague with a quizzical glance. "I have some more bad news."

"Worse than this?" he stretched out his hands in the direction of the gate thinking there couldn't be anything worse than that right now.

"It…" his wingmate rubbed his servos together nervously. " It wasn't open before."

That was worse. Definitely worse. "Frag." he said thinking about how fast could an idyllic mission like this go awry. "Let's get out of here"

Both jets transformed and started to make their way toward the surface. Starscream alerted the others about their departure. "We're leaving! Regroup immediately on the cliff, sending coordinates. I repeat, immediately!" he screeched into the comm-link losing his attempted cool composure. He turned and barrel rolled trying to find a spot where the crystals weren't blocking their way up.

"You've already collected your samples? But Starscream, we're having so much fun! Couldn't we stay a little longer?" Skywarp pleaded over the comm-link childishly. He had no idea of the danger he was in.

"That was an order! Not a matter of discussion! Fly to the surface at once!" he growled back.

"Don't we deserve a little reward for our good behaviour? We like followed your orders like for real, ya know?" Rumble joined the "conversation".

"Yeah, yeah! Totally! C'mon, Screamer! What if I ask you nicely, huh? Pweeeeeease?"

"Frag it! I don't have time to put up with you impertinence! You are only putting yourselves in danger!"

"Danger? Like what?" the purple jet laughed. "A crystal suddenly deciding to fall on top of us? Ha, Scream you're starting to get too paranoid. Even for-AAARRGH!"

"Skywarp? Slag it, answer me!" he received only static. He tried Rumble too but got the same response. "Those fools! Astrotrain, where are you?"

"Where I'm supposed to be." _At least someone follows orders._

"Return to Earth if we're not back in two breems. Thundercracker-you're with me." He said and changed his direction to Skywarp's last coordinates, Thundercracker in pursuit.

Although flying through a canyon and avoiding all the crystals in this speed was hard enough, they had to speed up. Starscream didn't know what happened to Rumble and Skywarp. But this was his responsibility and he had to return with them. Not that he cared about his subordinates, he would never admit that even if it was true, but Megatron would have his head if he left them here. Especially Soundwave's precious brat. Megatron found that pipsqueak more valuable than the Elite Trine. Which offended Starscream very much, but he was used to Megatron underestimating him. That was why he had to come back for them, he wouldn't be able to stand another round of "you fail me yet again" He would rather die out here.

He narrowly missed another crystal before arriving to Skywarp's destination, marked as a red dot on his radar. He transformed to his bipedal mode and stayed in the air, Thundercracker right behind him. He started looking for the two but his blue wingmate was faster than him.

"There!" he pointed to the ground at the unmoving frames and flew down. He ran to Skywarp and checked his vital stats. "He's just offline."

"Look at this," Starscream pointed at Skywarp's middle back. There was a circular scorched area on Skywarps plating. He found the same mark on Rumble's torso. "They've been shot."

"We should get out here," Thundercracker rumbled and pulled Skywarp's limb arm over his shoulder. Starscream took Rumble in his arms.

"Think you can carry Skywarp's _weighty _aft on your own?" he threw his wingmate a smirk. Thundercracker snorted and turned around to give his leader some goofy retort. But he gave none as he stared at something behind his commander, his optics widening in obvious horror.

And that was the last thing Starscream saw before he felt a hot pain between his wings and he fell into darkness.

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><p>So what you think? Too fast? Too slow? Too dramatic? OOC? Please let me now by clicking the pretty review button :3.<p>

Well you knew they would't make it back :D. Here is a little teaser of what should happen next!

**Next time teaser:**

"What the frag was that supposed to be, Skywarp?"

"What? You've never heard of the universal greeting?"


	3. Chapter 2

Hi guys! I'm sorry it took me so long but the school is killing me. I just don't have the mood for writing thanks to it. Thankfully we had two days of holidays so wrote this chappie.

I've found my Beta-Francesca Zatnik-thank you verymuch again!

Characters: Starscream, TC, Skywarp, Rumble

Disclaimer: TF's not mine.

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><p>"TeeCee! Wake up!"<p>

This was not what Thundercracker had expected to wake up to. Actually, judging by his last memory file he hadn't expected to wake up at all or, to wake up to a world of pain. Surprisingly he felt no pain; in fact he felt really good, as if he was fully recharged and that hadn't happened in eons. It made no sense. The last thing he remembered was a laser beam being fired at him and the burning pain in his torso. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe Skywarp had poured some hallucinogenic substance in his energon again. The last time he had done that he had seen Megatron singing and shooting rainbows out of his fusion cannon. That had been freaky…

"TC, answer me! I know you can hear meeee." Speaking of Skywarp, the mech was starting to give him a helmache.

"Shut up, slagger…"

"Gee. You can be such a pain sometimes. I just wanted to make sure they didn't offline you permanently." _So it wasn't a dream._

Thundercracker slowly sat up and onlined his optics to take a look at his surroundings. He had to push Skywarp away from his faceplates to do that first. What he saw confused him to say the least. They were surrounded by metal bars, the spaces between which were filled with some kind of transparent material, creating a circular wall. When he looked up he saw that the walls were tapered, coming to a point. The thing they were in had a shape of a cone. It was also divided into three levels, which he could see because the floors were transparent too. Each floor had a circular hole in the center to enable movement between the levels. They were trapped - and he didn't like that. (1)

He looked through the translucent material and saw that the "cage" they were in was situated in some kind of room. Even though the glass was distorting his vision he found he could make out some similarities to living quarters in the room. There were various objects resembling furniture, and a circular desk on the other side of the room, sticking out of the wall. Around it there were globular objects probably functioning as chairs. Also there were circular holes in the walls through which he could see into other rooms. Even the room itself had a shape of a sphere. The creatures sure liked things rounded. Everything he saw was made of the black metal he had seen in the tunnel, and dimly lit by the same lights he had seen there too. In spite of this the room didn't look hostile, but in fact reminded him of the houses the squishies lived in, as weird as it was.

"Where are we, 'Warp?"

"I dunno." the purple seeker shrugged. "But Screamer says it's some kind of prison. He claims we were taken down some tunnel."

"I don't claim, I only assume." said jet made his way over to them with Rumble by his side. "But there is no way out. That is certain."

"Did you try to break the glass…or whatever it is?"

"Unsuccessfully." The air commander sighed, "We tried to break it with Rumble's pile-drivers, melt it with our thrusters. None of us can access our weapon systems, though, so we couldn't shoot our way through."

"They blocked our weapons? But that means…they know our anatomy."

"I've arrived to that conclusion, too. They even repaired the damage done by their attack."

"And my broken shoulder joint!" at that everyone looked at the teleporter.

"There was nothing wrong with your shoulder joint." Starscream uttered after a moment of silence.

"Oh but there was! But I've never told you 'cause you would make me to go to Hook. And he doesn't like me." He said, making Thundercracker facepalm and Starscream roll his optics.

"Nobody likes you, Skywarp, and they have good reasons not to.(2)" the commander dismissed the subject while slapping Skywarp up the helm for a good measure. This apparently amused Rumble, judging by the snort he released.

"So what's the plan, oh great commander?" the cassette asked. Starscream pretended not to hear the sarcasm in Rumbles voice, much to the little robot's annoyance.

"We wait, we can't do much more." He said and sat down next to the others. "We'll try to negotiate with our captors as soon as they show themselves. Assuming they can talk and their language is in our database."

"Astrotrain got away, right?" Thundercracker asked. Seeing the others nod in agreement he elaborated. "Think Megatron will send a rescue for us?"

"I am pretty sure he would be glad to leave me rust in here and he definitely wouldn't waste the energon for you, either" that didn't sound very promising. "But Soundwave wouldn't leave his precious brat here."

"So I am actually important for ya?" Rumble grinned up at the others.

"…Theoretically." Starscream slowly and reluctantly admitted.

"Cool! Now ya should start worshiping me or something!"Rumble crossed his arms, looking very proud of himself.

"In your dreams, midget." Skywarp growled and the two of them began to throw insults at each other. Thundercracker noticed the others' behavior was pretty normal considering they were being held as prisoners by alien creatures on alien planet. (3)

"Thundercracker," he turned from the bantering mechs to regard his commander, who had spoken. "You saw them. What did they look like?"

The blue jet replayed the memory in his processor. The first thing he felt when he saw the creature was disgust. "It was definitely organic and it was not pretty. It was huge but you already know that. It had multiple arms, claws, black skin, and huge yellow optics…erm eyes." He shrugged in discomfort. "Why you wanna know? I'm sure you're gonna see for yourself."

"I'm searching my memory banks for anything corresponding with your description. I hoped to have some information on them from my years as an explorer, or my studies." He said while shaking his head. "But I don't recall anything similar."

Starscream was trying to stay calm just for the sake of keeping up the moral. He didn't want the others to start freaking out like he was inside. His seeker senses were tingling-they were trapped somewhere underground with no way out, too far from the open sky for his likings. Primus knew how long they would be trapped. Even though he said the rescue was coming, he really doubted it. He feared even Soundwave wouldn't be convincing enough to persuade Megatron to waste the energon on them. Greedy slagger. For now it was the only hope they had and he could only to latch onto it, at least until he was able to conceive a plan of his own.

"Are you alright?" Starscream glared at Thundercracker for the offensive question. "You're shaking." Thundercracker defended himself. The commander looked down at his servos and forced himself to stop the trembling.

"Pfft! I'm fine, of course I'm fine, just peachy…" he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away with a scowl on his face. _I just don't want to die here…_

"Rumble! Stop gnawing Skywarp's foot!" Thundercracker roared. Starscream turned to see the cassette giving his wingmate a rude hand gesture.

"TC! Shut up!" Skywarp screeched much to everyone's surprise. Thundercracker gawked.

"Whaa? I'm defending your feet, you slagger-"

"Shush! I mean it!"he froze with his hands in the air and blank look on his faceplates intently listening to something. "Can't you hear that?"

The others turned up their audios and ceased their movements, not hearing anything at first. After a moment they heard a soft clicking noise. They glanced around trying to determine from where the noise was coming, only for it to stop. There was a moment of silence before a loud swoosh was heard and the lights in room lit up suddenly.

"They're coming to get us!" Rumble screamed and clutched onto Skywarp's leg, hugging it tightly. The jet was rubbing his hands together nervously, his optics wide and wings twitching. He got up, ignoring the additional weight on his leg and ran to hide behind his commander.

"Don't let them eat me, Screamer!" he whispered. The red jet gulped and gathered the little courage he had left to stand up, Thundercracker doing the same. They regarded the circular hole in the wall from which weird noises could be heard, backing away a little as the noises increased in volume.

Three creatures emerged from the hole. One of them was considerably smaller than the other two but otherwise it was the same. As Thundercracker had said, they were organics. They had long bodies, similar to Earth's snakes in the fact that they lacked any form of lower limbs enabling them movement, but differed from the reptiles in their multiple arms, four to be exact, and an upright torso. Their black to gray skin was covered in scales and there were several spikes on their backs. Their heads were elongated to the front with huge yellow eyes. The creatures were huge, in the same way that Cybertronians compared to a human.

The smallest one fixed its eyes on them, opened its mouth and released a squeak. It then slithered its way to them, followed by the other two, extended one claw and tapped on the glass. It regarded them with its ridiculously big eyes and released a sequence of squeaks, clicks and hisses in what was apparently their language at the four frozen Decepticons.

Rumble peaked around Skywarp's leg to take a look. "They're ugly." He muttered."And creepy."

"They are not that scary..." the teleporter whispered. He nudged his air commander behind which he was still hiding. "Didn't you wanna negotiate with them?"

"I can't" the red jet gulped. "Their language isn't registered in my databanks. They wouldn't understand a word."

"I might help you with that…"

"What?" he turned to regard his purple wingmate with a quizzical look. "You? How?"

"Just let me talk to them." Stasrcream regarded him with "are you serious" glare but in the end gave in.

"Whatever. Just don't make them mad or something." He shrugged and stepped aside to give his subordinate room. Said subordinate got up from his kneeling position, Rumble letting go and attaching himself on Starscream's leg instead. The purple jet made his way to the front of the cage. He cleared his vocals to gather his bravery, spread his arms dramatically and spoke loudly and clearly.

"_Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong!" _

Skywarp stood there with his arms spread out waiting for a response. The only response he got were surprised stares from both his fellow Decepticons and the creatures. In the end the smallest creature tilted its head sideways looking very confused. It then looked up to its companions and squeaked something at them. The others answered and engaged themselves in a conversation. Starscream chose this moment to hiss at his subordinate.

"What the frag was that supposed to be, Skywarp?"

"What? You've never heard of the universal greeting?(4)" he turned around to give his commander an innocent look.

"There is no slag like that! There can't be with the amount of life forms and languages in the universe! It is scientifically impossible." He stomped over to the purple seeker, Rumble still attached to his leg, and whacked him up the helm.

"Ouch! What was that for?"

"For your IDIOCY!" the red seeker screeched waving his arms around and making the creatures stop their conversation and look at them again.

One of the bigger beings let out something similar to a snort, pointed at the red seeker and muttered something making the other two burst out into a variety of squeaky noises.

"Heh" Thundercracker chuckled, "they are laughing at you, Scream."

"No, they're not!" said jet crossed his arms defiantly and pouted.

When the beings ceased their "laughter" the smallest one asked the others something with questioning shriek. When they gave it a positive answer he turned to regard the Decepticons and pointed at each one of them while letting out different sounds for each Decepticon. One of the bigger ones than patted its head and then they all left for one of the holes. The lights shut down.

"What was that about?" Skywarp asked.

"Ah think it just said in which order it wants to eat us. I'm the first! Ah don't wanna get eaten!" Rumble squeaked while hugging Starscream's leg tighter. The jet looked down at him.

"Mech up, will you?" he shook his leg. "And get off me." The little cassette reluctantly did so, but still stayed close.

"I think it named us." Thundercracker muttered. Everyone looked at him oddly.

"What?" Starscream asked with a raised optic ridge.

"I said it gave us names-"

"I heard that, my audios aren't broken. I want you to justify your hypothesis."

"I think they consider us their pets." At Starscream's incredulous look he elaborated."Look, I know I may sound crazy but they really remind me of humans. They have similar living quarters and appear to live in family structures. Humans keep their pets in cages" he gestured around himself, "and this is a cage. They also weren't hostile, made no attempt at communicating with us, and didn't appear as if they'd wanted to let us go anytime soon."

The three Decepticons were looking at him with open mouths.

"Sooo" Skywarp put on a thoughtful expression. "My name is _Bleuughree?"_

Starscream facepalmed. "This is ridiculous." He sat down and rubbed his optics.

"What's the plan now?" Thundercracker asked. "The one with negotiating obviously didn't work."

"There is no plan.(5)" The red jet growled. "We'll just sit here and hope Megatron will be generous enough to spare a few cubes on us. Or we could live as good pets for the rest of our eternity!"

"Slag no!" Rumble stomped. "Ah don't wanna be anybody's pet!"

"You don't have choice!" the commander shrieked completely losing his cool. "Oh, wait maybe you do! I could spare you the disgrace by tearing your spark out! WOULD YOU LIKE THAT?"

"Starscream, calm down-"

"I AM CALM! Absolutely calm!" he continued shrieking, his optics glowing with rage. "We're going to spend the rest of our lives as some monsters' toys(6), of course I'm calm! Ugh! If you two followed my orders and retreated when I told you to, we wouldn't be in this mess!"

"Hey! Don't blame this on us!" Rumble opposed. "You were the one who told us this planet was uninhabited! We couldn't have expected this! Did you fail to read your reports correctly?"

"The reports were from Golden Age! That's a long time ago! Millions of life forms could have evolved since then! It's not my fault!"

"It is nobody's fault! So stop this fight, it won't solve anything." Thundercracker interjected. "I think we all just need a recharge. We can discuss this later."

"Fine…"Starscream grumbled. "Go and recharge. I'll keep the watch…for safety." He bent his legs and hugged them, resting his chin on his knees. He heard the others walk away in silence. Except for one.

"What do you want, Thundercracker?"

"You blame yourself for this, don't you?" He did. And it was hard for him to confess it. For the first time in his life he felt like it was all his fault. This was his mission, so he was responsible for it, and for the others. He knew somewhere Megatron was laughing at his failure. "You couldn't have expected this."

"I could have been more cautious." He sighed. "You said you needed a recharge so go and get it…"

"I woke up as last so I'm pretty fresh. I'm gonna keep watch with you." He sat down next to the air commander.

"Hmph."

"They will come for us, you know…"

"Thought you were the pessimist." He mocked to lighten up the mood. "A Decepticon who can't take care of himself is not valuable for the cause. We don't even come back for the injured on the battlefield. They will not come back for us…"

Thundercracker had no answer to that.

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><p>Hope you liked it! Please let me know what you think!<p>

**Author's comments:  
><strong>1 - I don't know if the seeker claustrophobia was ever mentioned in any series, but it seems canon in the fandom so...yeah.  
>2- The pranks, 'Warp, the pranks...<br>3- TC is the only one with common sense  
>4- Skywarp is the only one worthy of knowing it<br>5- insert the score from DOTM of the same name for epicness  
>6- you're a toy in real life. So chill out, Scream.<p>

**Next time teaser:  
><strong>"Creeper?"  
>"If they can name us, I can name them."<p> 


	4. Chapter 3

Hello readers! If some of you worried that I might be dead-I am not. And I am terribly sorry for making it seem that way. My inactivity was 'caused by a plethora of things -mainly school, adulty stuff and my loss of interest in almost everthing. But I know how I hate when authors abandon their stories around here so I decided to drag this story to the bitter end no matter what it takes! But I warn you now that I have no idea how long it is going to take me...I plan on uploading two or three more chapters during the holidays but when the school starts...Primus knows.

So, again I apologize for the three year long delay and declare this story no longer abandoned! YAY!

Also if you have any ideas regarding the story, be sure to let me know! If I like it I might take it into consideration ;)!

Enjoy!

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><p>"Skywarp! Wake up you lazy aft!"<p>

Skywarp was awoken by the deep rumble that was his best, and frankly his only, friend's voice and a not so light kick in his side.

He groaned and without onlining his optics rolled over to lie on his stomach. "Just two more breems, TC…" he murmured, his words unintelligible with his faceplates now squashed against the floor.

Skywarp was by no means a morning person. Everyone assumed he was hyperactive judging from his inability to sit still for a prolonged period of time. Thinking about it- maybe he was. Maybe he was a bit more active compared to other mechs. Just not in the morning. Definitely not in the morning.

He heard the others talking in the background but he couldn't bring himself to listen to what they were saying and honestly he couldn't care less as he felt himself slowly falling into recharge again. If he did listen he might have prepared himself for what was about to come.

"YEEHAAW!" he frowned and was about to yell at whomever decided to interrupt his recharge _again_ to keep it down only for a weight to drop down on his back between his wings causing him to release a loud 'Oof!'.

"You got a chance to get up before I make ya get up."

Rumble was standing on his back with his hands crossed, a triumphant expression on his faceplates. An expression Skywarp wanted to wipe off those faceplates immediately.

"Get off me you little piece of slag!" the purple jet tried to shake the cassette off but to no avail.

"I'm not gonna repeat my generous offer again."

Rumble was now smirking at him with mischievous intentions clearly visible in his visor. Skywarp narrowed his optics, his mouth set in a straight line. Him and the midget were constantly competing over the first place on his imaginary 'Most annoying Decepticons' list with them and Frenzy as the only contestants. And Skywarp liked to stay on the top of that list. So if Rumble is going to try to annoy him to getting up he was not going to give him the pleasure of succeeding. With his resolution to not get up now stronger than ever he huffed and planted his faceplates back on the floor in a silent challenge.

And Rumble took it as such.

"Oh, you asked for it!" he exclaimed and proceeded to jump up and down on the seeker's back.

_He's got to be kidding…_Skywarp growled but refused to give other indication of displeasure in hopes the cassette would get bored and go away. But knowing the little pipsqueak – that wouldn't happen anytime soon. Each time Rumble landed on his back sent pain through his upper body. It was like getting hit with a large boulder over and over again. Not to mention the clangs of each landing echoing in his helmet. He gritted his denta trying to tune it all out. Unsuccessfully.

"Okay! OKAY! STOP IT! You win…" he reluctantly admitted. His back was going to hurt for a while after this.

"Sooo you're gonna get up?"

"Yeees, I'm gonna get up," the purple jet whined imitating the culprit. "Now get off!"

The cassetticon bounced off and watched as the seeker slowly rolled over and sat up rubbing his now sore back. He couldn't help the smug look that creeped its way onto his faceplates. He sure knew how to do his job properly. And Rumble being Rumble couldn't help but jab at the seeker's hurt dignity.

"Aww, poor Skywarp! Little Rumble didn't hurt you too much, did he?" He soon realized the mistake of saying this when the jet enclosed his claws around his neck, glaring at him with fire in his optics and proceeded to strangle him.

"Why you little-!"

"Let him go, 'Warp."

The jet looked to the side where both his wingmates were leaning against the wall, amusement apparent in their optics. "What? You're defending him? Didn't you see what he did?"

"Sure we did," the blue jet answered. "We watched it all."

"And you didn't stop him?"

"Nope. Why would we? He was only doing his job!" Thundercracker almost laughed.

"His _job_? You _told_ him to do it?" he glanced at his commander for confirmation, the large grin on the red and white jet's face being more confirmation than he needed. He almost felt hurt.

"I hate you guys…" he pouted and released the cassette from his grip. The tiny culprit rubbed his throat.

"Hey! It was for your own good, you know? We didn't want you to miss any more fun!"

"Fun?" Skywarp blinked. "What fun?"

As an answer Rumble pointed his right servo to the other side of the cage. Skywarp turned around to see what he was pointing at.

"Huh. When did _that_ get here?"

There, on the far end of the lower circular floor, a large bowl sat innocently, looking as if it has always been there. It was made from the dark metal everything else in the room was. _Is there anything they don't use this stuff for?_

"When do you think, _sleeping beauty_?" was the sarcastic response he received.

Skywarp threw a dirty look at his commander which Starscream either didn't notice or pretended he didn't notice it.

"While you were oh so peacefully recharging one of the creatures came here, opened a hatch in the wall and placed this inside. We were _of course_ throwing as much ruckus as we could at the moment to wake you up as we evacuated to the upper levels. But, as you can guess, it was ineffective on your thick helmet."

"Really, 'Warp," the blue seeker seconded, "a tornado tearing your quarters apart wouldn't rouse you."

"So…you just left me here?"

"Yep!"

"Pretty much."

"10/10 would do it again!"

"Thanks…" the teleporter pouted. But Skywarp wasn't one to hold a grudge. Probably because of his short attention span. And he found grudges boring. Plus there were more interesting matters at hand. "Aaaanyway…" he ran over to the bowl and pointed at the fluffy purple substance inside, his interrupted recharge cycle seemingly forgotten. "Is this energon in here?"

"Possibly." Starscream shrugged.

"Possibly?" Skywarp picked up some of the substance and squeezed it a few times. "You haven't scanned it yet?"

"No and I won't since I don't have my scanner. They emptied our subspace storage compartments. They were very thorough in disabling us. We have to give them that-"

"They did WHAT?" the purple jet shrieked and quickly checked his subspace compartment. Starscream was right. It was gone. It was all gone. His special stack of super glue that he had been guarding with his spark was all gone. He fell to his knees, his hands falling limply to his sides and threw his head back. "WHYYY?"

"I don't even want to know." The air commander concluded after a few astroseconds of watching Skywarp's tantrum.

Thundercracker could only hum in agreement.

Rumble getting tired of watching Skywarp screaming profanities at the ceiling made his way over to the bowl. After a moment of staring at the fluffy stuff and contemplating his life choices he arrived to the conclusion that both results of the two scenarios generated from what he was about to do were equally bad. The results were: A) Nothing would happen and he would continue living in this cage with three crazy seekers. B) He would die. He shrugged. _Oh, what the pit! _He grabbed a handful of the substance and put it in his mouth.

"SPIT IT OUT!" Came the high pitched screech from behind him as the air commander landed in front of him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Testing if it's energon," Rumble gestured with his hand half full of the substance, "you're welcome." And he took another bite.

"NO! Stop that! Do you have a death wish?" he grabbed the cassetticon by his shoulders and shook him. "It could be poisonous! I'm not letting you poison yourself, you are our only possible ticket back to Earth so don't you dare kill yourself so stupidly!"

Rumble, expressionless and utterly unimpressed by Starscream's loudness, just continued to munch.

"Starscream calm down. It's not poisonous."

Starscream threw his blue wingmate a vivid look. "And why are you so sure?"

Thundercracker sighed. "It's not poison. It's food. We're their pets, remember? They wouldn't want to kill their pets."

Starscream stared at him horrified. "How can you say that so calmly? How can you even willingly let _that_ sentence out of your mouth? We are not anyone's pets!"

"Look Starscream, I know it's hard for you to admit, I know it's hard to even think about it without frying a processor or two, but you need to get used to it. You don't have to act like one, but they are going to treat you like one and you can't do anything about that. That's the deal."

The red and white seeker continued to regard him for a few more astroseconds. Then he sighed and looked down at the floor. "I still don't get how you can be so calm about this…"

The blue jet smirked. "If not me, then who?"

Rumble looked between the two seekers. "Well, it all sounds reasonable to me!" He grabbed another handful and took a bite. "Plus this stuff actually tastes good!"

Thundercracker shrugged and decided to try some aswell. "Well…he's not wrong."

Starscream regarded his subordinates with disgust. Besides the fact that he was still mistrustful about the "food" he just hated the idea of doing what he was expected to do, it went against his code. So naturally, when the creatures give him food that he's supposed to eat, of course he won't do it.

"Do you still think it's poisonous or are you just being stubborn?"

Starscream decided the question wasn't really worthy of a verbal answer. So instead he rewarded his wingmate with a glare. A glare that said _'You should watch where you're going with that'_ which he had mastered over the years of serving in the Decepticon army. He had actually mastered a whole set of glares. From _'Don't you think you should rephrase that?'_ to _'Your death will be swift'_ or _'Your parts shall be ritually sacrificed'_. He had them all.

And Thundercracker could tell them all apart. He raised his servos in defense and quickly elaborated. "What I mean is that this has two possible outcomes. It's not poisonous and you're going to starve to death. Or it is poisonous, me and Rumble are going to die and you will be left alone with him." He gestured to the now face down lying form of the third seeker.

Starscream glanced at their purple wingmate who was mumbling incoherent nonsense into the floor while punching it repeatedly. The air commander grimaced. Spending eternity alone with Skywarp was a fate he wouldn't bestow on anyone, let alone himself. Actually, maybe he would. A smirk appeared on his features. _I just invented the most cruel torture method ever created. _He decided to ponder on the idea a bit more later and looked back at where his more sane wingmate was standing.

He eyed the substance for what felt like a hundredth time before extending his hand and grabbing a handful. He sneered at it as he twisted his hand around taking a look from all sides. With his left hand he took a smaller piece of and squeezed it between his fingers making a disgusted face at noise it created.

He took a look at Rumble who was openly stuffing handfuls into his mouth, no notion of table etiquette present. When he looked at Thundercracker he was met with a raised optic ridge. He huffed, taking one last look at the bite between his fingers. _'Here goes nothing,'_ he thought before finally putting it in his mouth. He mulled the morsel over a few times before swallowing. Surprisingly, it didn't taste bad.

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Starscream glared at the blue seeker. "Don't you dare patronize me…" he grumbled before taking another bite.

"Wouldn't dream of it," the other jet grinned before looking at the now silent teleporter. "C'mon, 'Warp! Quit moping and join us at the table."

Said jet wordlessly picked himself up from the floor and made his way over to the bowl. Once in front it he fell to his knees and faceplanted into their breakfast with a resounding _splat._

_'__And they say I am the drama queen…'_ the air commander thought as he regarded his subordinate. Thundercracker, now possibly starting to get worried, carefully proceeded to poke in Skywarp's shoulder plates which resulted in no reaction from the teleporter.

"Hey! Skywarp! Pull yourself together, will ya?" Rumble exclaimed then he threw a portion of their food at Skywarp's helmet.

The seeker lifted his head and glared at the cassette before yelling, "You don't know my pain!" and slamming his hands down where his face was astroseconds ago, efficiently sending the food flying in every direction, hitting anyone in the radius.

Starscream slowly wiped the goo of his faceplates, his patience finally ran out.

_'__Oh, frag,'_ Skywarp thought when he saw his commander's murderous expression. He closed his optics and mentally prepared himself for the screeching scolding he was sure about to get. When none came he slowly onlined his optics only to find Starcream looming above him. He gulped.

"Aren't you…going to send me to a corner or something?"

"Well, I would…" Starscream replied in a surprisingly calm tone, "IF CIRCLES HAD CORNERS, IDIOT!" the inevitable screech came, followed by a whack up his helmet.

And then the scolding came.

Thundercracker watched with a certain level of glee as Starscream paced back and forth ranting about Skywarp's stupidity. It was always amusing to watch, as long as one was not on the receiving end. Glancing at Skywarp, who was now pouting and rubbing his helmet, made him only smile more.

However a movement in the corner of his optic caught his attention and reminded him that they were not alone. There, in the doorframe on the far end of the room, one of the creatures, probably the smallest one, stood, partially hiding behind a wall and intently watching them.

Thundercracker narrowed his optics.

"Starscream…"

"…a disgrace to the Decepticons, not to mention a disgrace to the seeker kind…"

"Starscream!"

"…and the most-WHAT?"

The blue jet merely inclined his head in the general direction of the creature, the others looked where he pointed.

"Oh." Starscream stated, his wings dropping.

"Whoa, that's creepy," Skywarp gazed at the organic standing still in the doorframe, its yellow eyes seemingly glowing on its otherwise dark features, "How long has it been there?"

"It's watching us like we're some kinda freak show," Rumble shared his thoughts with others as he slowly moved towards the closest seeker, for safety, never taking his optics off of the alien.

"HEY! Meatball! Watcha staring at, huh?!" Skywarp earned himself another whack up his helmet.

"Quiet!" Starscream hissed, "Maybe if we stop moving and stay silent for a moment it will get bored and go away."

The creature cocked its head to the side at the sudden inactivity inside the cage. Realizing it had been noticed it stood still for another moment, blinking a few times before deciding to take a closer look.

"Aaaand maybe not…" the wing leader muttered as the organic started to slither in their direction.

"Brilliant plan as always, Screamer!" "Shut up!"

The three seekers ignited their thrusters while Rumble latched himself on Thundercracker's leg and they all franticly 'evacuated' to the upper level, Rumble never letting go.

The thing put one claw on the glass and tapped with another one, watching them intently with its curious eyes. Then it released a series of cooing sounds and tapped on the glass some more.

"What does it expect us to do? Dance?"

"Well maybe you should, 'Warp. After all, you're an excellent dancer!"

Suddenly the creature widened its eyes and released a long chirp. Then it slithered to the middle of the room and released another series of sounds, this time louder.

The Decepticons watched it with apprehension but relaxed a bit with the greater distance between them and the alien.

"What's it doing now?"

One of the larger creatures emerged from the door and seemed to get engaged in a conversation with the smaller one. Whatever they were discussing seemed to end with the smaller one releasing a loud squeal and clapping its claws together.

Starscream watched as the large one moved towards the door, pressed a button on a panel next to it and voiced a command after which the door was sealed shut. It then moved to the other door and did the same.

"This can't be good!" Rumble squeaked from behind Thundercracker, "They're closing everything so no one hears how they murder us!"

Starscream rolled his optics but couldn't help but sympathize with the cassette's paranoia. Despite establishing that the creatures thought of them as their-he hated even thinking the word-pets, their further motives and future treatment remained unclear.

The larger of the creatures slithered away to rest on one of those round objects. The small one came to their cage again and opened the hatch on the lower level's wall, then quickly departed to hide behind another one of the round objects, its head the only thing visible as it curiously peeked at them.

The four cybertronians stared at the open hatch in their cage.

"Are they…letting us out?" Skywarp asked, confusion apparent in his voice.

"They are," Starscream frowned, "but only _into_ the room. Still…"

"Well I'm staying here. They can keep their disgusting room to themselves, right guys?" Rumble glanced at the Seeker trio for confirmation. "Guys?"

Stasrcream took a look at his wingmates to see if they were thinking what he was thinking. Even if they have been enclosed for a so far short period of time, he was already starting to get an itch in his wings. The room was large. It wasn't the open sky but it would serve the purpose. Any chance to fly, especially when he didn't know when he would receive another one, was a chance he wouldn't turn down.

Seeing as Skywarp was practically bouncing and Thundercracker seemed equally eager there was nothing to discuss. He smirked.

"Well. I think that if they want a show so badly," he jumped through the whole in the floor and swiftly landed on the lower level, his wingmates immediately following suit, "then let's put on a show!"

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><p>AN: Huge thanks to you guys for reading! If you feel like it, review, fave, whatever. Also if you catch any grammar mistakes in this that would make your eyes bleed, be sure to let me know! Primus knows I can't figure out the interpunction in English. You would also be surprised how many typos I can make in the 'cons' names...<p>

That is all from me! Until next time!


	5. Chapter 4

Hello again readers! I, again, apologize for the delay. It took me longer than I expected (I couldn't find my way around words, I dunno) BUT it also got longer than I expected. I wanted to divide this in two separate chapters, but they ended up being too short for separate posting so I ended up combining them together. Sorta 2 in 1.

to Francesca Zatnik: I imagine them being what transformers are to humans. So I guess humans are around 6 ft, a transformer around 30. That would make the organics 5 times bigger than a transformer, so around 150 ft. I hope this is a satisfying answer :D.

Thank you all for the kind feedback! :)

Now! Enjoy!

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><p>All three seekers ignited their thrusters at once, transformed and shot through the opening, leaving a dumbfounded looking Rumble behind. They automatically fell into the familiar V-formation and rocketed towards the ceiling. A second before slamming into it they broke the formation and headed away from each other, their directions so calculated it seemed they were each aiming for vertices of a virtual equilateral triangle, making them look like exploding fireworks. Then they let the gravity claim them, free falling until the very last moment possible, then igniting their thrusters again, swiftly avoiding smashing into the ground. They each performed a series of twists, turns and barrel rolls, they flew and fell, they ascended and descended. It was a dance. It was art and they gave it all their sparks. For the moment they stopped caring. For the moment they forgot they were trapped. For the moment they forgot they were being watched. The creatures were both a different picture of awe. The larger one was staring upwards, its mouth slightly agape and its eyes following the fliers' every movement, while the small one was squealing and bouncing up and down on spot. Even Rumble, now bravely standing in the opening to get a closer look, seemed to be enjoying the show. The seekers rejoined in the formation and performed a series of stunts, some looking more dangerous than the others, then settled for seemingly chasing each other around.<p>

"Woohoo!" the purple jet hollered, "We still got it!"

"Was there ever a doubt?" Starscream returned before narrowly avoiding hitting one of the ceiling lights.

"Nope! Gotta give us some praise for our skills though!" the air commander would have grinned at that if he wasn't in his jet form. He abruptly slowed down, transformed to bipedal mode and hovered on the spot, his wingmates doing the same.

"Then let's put our skills to a good use," he gestured to the room, "split up and check the room for openings, cracks or anything we could use for our advantage. But please, Skywarp, try to be at least a bit inconspicuous."

The purple seeker grinned. "You got it, Screamer!" he mock saluted while Thundercracker simply nodded before they both flew off.

"Don't call me that." The air commander muttered mostly to himself, out of habit he supposed. He transformed and set on carrying out his own command. Seeing as the others were already checking the ceiling and walls-Skywarp not being inconspicuous at all, since he was openly sticking his servos in every gap he could-he settled for scanning the floor. First he checked if there were any gaps where the door met the floor. Seeing none he continued with flying low over the floor in tight circles.

Rumble huffed and crossed his arms over his tiny chest. The show seemed to be over as the seekers started doing…whatever they were doing. Snooping around? It sure seemed so. Rumble frowned. He didn't understand seekers, he never had. For him they were just a crazy bunch of impulsive mechs with, in this case, very inconvenient addiction to open skies. And he was stuck with three of them for an undetermined amount of time. That sucked. He sincerely hoped most of the things he heard about seeker psychosis were false. For his own sake. If they were true he was scrapped. Three times, actually.

He shook his head as he pushed these bitter thoughts aside. It was too late when he realized he wasn't the only one not paying attention to the seekers anymore. He looked up only for his view to be obscured by a giant claw above him.

"Slag!" the cassette tried to hightail it back to the cage but it was futile. He yelped as it snatched him up. "Nooononono!" he watched as his desired destination was getting further. All rational thought left him when the panic kicked in. He screamed. He screamed as loud as he could. He trashed, scratched, even bit down with his tiny dentas, it was not even a bit effective against the scales of the claw which, to his horror, was nearing the creature's head. _It'sgonnaeatmeIt'sgonnaeatmeIt'sgonnaeatme! _Rumble stood up to his name, creating as much ruckus as his position allowed, mostly via his voice box, straining it to a maximum.

The creature studied the minuscule mech in its hand. For such a small thing he sure created a lot of noise. But why was he doing that? It tilted its head to the side and squinted. He sure wasn't in pain, it was careful not to squeeze too much. Maybe he was scared? But there's nothing to be scared of, it wouldn't hurt him. The creature cooed at the mech in an attempt to soothe him. It then very gently patted Rumble on the helmet, careful not to apply too much pressure. For a moment it seemed to work as the mech went completely still, as if he was in shock, but then he exploded into even more noise than before. Although confused the creature did not give up its attempts at calming the little bot down.

Luckily for Rumble his rescue was…in the process.

"Skywarp, you're an aft." Thundercracker watched his wingmate doubling over in laughter over the casseticon's misery.

"But…TC! Look…at him!" he let out between fits of laugher and imitated the cassette's flailing arms, "C'mon! Don't tell me you don't think it's funny!" he jabbed the blue jet in the torso with his elbow. Thundercracker gave him one of his unamused looks. _Pit, he's good at these_. "Killjoy. Scream! You think it's hilarious, right?"

"I think it's humiliating," the red jet grimaced.

"Pff! Same thing!"

"There's something wrong with your language databanks then," Starscream frowned then shook his head, "It treats him like a toy!"

"You pity him?" the teleporter snorted, "Seriously, you? Since when are _you_ so emphatic?"

"Since THIS!" he snarled into Skywarp's faceplates and gestured at the room with his hand, indicating their situation. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, with your thick helmet I honestly wouldn't be surprised, but our current situation is one-"

"I know about our _situation_!" Skywarp gritted between his dentae, "It's one more reason for me to enjoy a spectacle like this when it's given! You know, when life gives you lemons…"

Starscream blinked. "Lemons?"

"Oh! You know. This yellow thingy that grows on some of those Earth's trees, that-"

"What does Earth flora have to do with anything?"

"Nothing! It's just a human saying! The point is-"

"We should help him." Thundercracker stepped in.

"What? No, that's not what I meant."

"I know it's not what you meant," the blue jet rolled his optics at his purple comrade, "I'm just saying that we should help him."

"Nuh-uh!" Skywarp crossed his arms over his cockpit, "No way in pit I'm helping that brat…"

"I agree with Thundercracker," Starscream put in while giving Skywarp a significant look, "We should definitely help him."

Skywarp repeatedly looked from one of his teammates to the other, then threw his arms up in frustration. "Screw you guys! I'm not gonna be a part of your goody rescue operation…" he pouted and crossed his arms.

"Primus, Skywarp, get the bigger picture!" Starscream had to stop himself from beating some sense into his teammate. He clenched and unclenched his fists, calming himself down and settling for a milder, verbal approach, "It's not as much about helping Rumble as it is about proving a point to those fleshbags."

The teleporter narrowed his optics in consideration. "What point?"

"That we're not going to let them handle us like this." he looked and nodded at Thundercracker, remembering his words from earlier, "That even though they are going to treat us like their…_pets_" he spat, the word still felt disgusting to pronounce, "…we can do something about it, we will not willingly act like ones. "

Thundercracker only responded with a barely there smile.

"Ah, so you're talking about…_rebellion_." Skywarp rasped the last word out with a wicked grin.

"You can take it that way." Starscream smirked.

"Alrighty, I can do that!" the purple seeker cracked his knuckles in front of him, "I can do rebellion. Rebellion is my lemonade!"

The other two exchanged confused glances. "Uhh…whatever, 'Warp."

"So, how do we do this?" the teleporter asked after a pause.

"Right." Starscream broke from his thoughts about lemons, and pointed at Skywarp, "You cause a distraction. We will handle the rest."

"Okie dokie! One distraction coming up!" Skywarp ignited his thrusters and flew over to the creature, stopping directly in front of its face, well, face _area_. He spread his arms and started waving them while yelling "Hey! Ditchface! Over here!", making sure he had its attention. "Yeah! That's right! You watch this very carefully!" he goaded the alien when its yellow eyes turned to look at him. He transformed into his jet form and started flying in circles around the creature's head.

First Skywarp's actions did not evoke any reaction from the creature. It followed Skywarp's movements with its eyes every time he came into its field of vision. At first it seemed amused, occasionally chirping at Skywarp's sudden changes of direction. But as Skywarp started gradually gaining speed and it was no longer able to follow his movements, only seeing black blurry lines, it started to grow agitated. It started to emanate slightly lower rumbling noises and tried to swap the seeker away.

Meanwhile the rest of the jets was flying around the room, gaining speed and specifying their positions.

"I'll make the organic lose its grip on Rumble, you get him when he falls." Starscream commanded as he flew side by side with his blue teammate.

"No, you get him." Thundercracker overtook his commander, "I kind of feel like smashing into something."

That would have gained Thundercracker a confused stare. Starscream decided not to question his partner out loud, since he really had no problem with their change of positions. Instead he slowed down allowing Thundercracker to gain distance from him and positioned himself under the blue jet's trajectory, preparing himself for the upcoming catch.

They rounded the room one more time before heading for Rumble's location, advancing rapidly, until Thundercracker, his thrusters on maximum, slammed nose first into the creature's wrist. The impact caused it to release a surprised and slightly pained yelp and unclench its claw, sending Rumble falling to the ground. But his fall didn't last long as he was swept away by seemingly flying-by Starscream.

"You can stop screeching now, I got you." Rumble did so, he clutched Starscream's forearms firmly, making sure he wouldn't fall, but didn't re-online his optics, saving that for the moment he was safely on the ground again.

Starscream came to a halt to look behind. Skywarp was now by Thundercracker's side, putting his arm over his shoulders to stabilize him, since he seemed a bit shaken from his collision, and carefully guiding them away from the now wailing organic. It was clutching its wrist with its other claw. The thought that they were able to inflict pain upon the aliens pleased Starscream to no end. It was a fact that would prove useful should they ever have the opportunity to escape. He watched as the larger one came to comfort the smaller creature, it cooed and rubbed its head while inspecting the wrist. It then looked up and locked gazes with the seeker. Starscream, being a provocateur at spark, could not help but sneer back at the organic. To his surprise it responded with baring its teeth in return.

"Uh oh…" the seeker cursed his impulsive nature when the creature charged. He yelped in surprise as he narrowly avoided being hit with a claw. "Skywarp! Retreat!" He avoided another claw before speeding in the direction of the cage. It was the last location he wanted to go, but currently it provided the only safe hideout available.

Skywarp once he saw what was going on cursed loudly and as quickly as he could dragged the still shaken Thundercracker inside the cage, Starscream barreled in with Rumble still in his arms astroseconds after them. Once they were all inside the creature swiftly closed the hatch after them. For a moment it regarded them with narrowed eyes in what seemed a disapproving glare, but then returned to care for its offspring.

The seekers visibly relaxed. Starscream allowed himself a relieved sigh as he slouched against the wall. He looked down at his arms where Rumble was still gripping them tightly. "It's over. You can let go now."

The cassetticon onlined his optics and looked around him, his gaze finally falling on his hands. "Oh." He abruptly released his grip as if he did not realize it was even there. "I...uh…" he climbed down and stood next to the seeker, sheepishly playing with his hands and looking at the ground. "…umm…thanks."

Starscream was flabbergasted. Rumble was…thanking him? That was something he did not expect happening in a thousand vorns. In fact expressing someone's gratitude out loud was so rare in the decepticon army that if 'thanks' was a species it would be endangered and Rumble just saved it from dying out. For a moment Starscream was lost. How does one respond when they are being thanked?

"Hey, could you repeat that a bit louder? Me and TC didn't hear you-and honestly? We did all the hard work so we deserve aaaall the credit." You can count on Skywarp to not leave any prolonged silence undisturbed.

Rumble seemingly shaking off his shock crossed his arms and turned to the purple flier, switching back to his loud-mouthed self. "I'm not repeating anything. You heard me alright!"

"Keep it down!" Thundercracker growled from his sitting position and rubbed his temples. "I've got a helmache the size of Cybertron…"

"_I still want to hear him say it…_" Skywarp whispered.

"_Not. Happenin'!_" Rumble whispered back.

"You wouldn't need to thank us at all if you didn't get yourself into this mess." Starscream resolved his inner discussion- he can respond to anything with snide remarks. "What in the pit were you thinking?"

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Of course it was!" Starscream rolled his optics, "You got out of the cage!"

"Well…so did you!"

"Unlike you _we_ possess the means of quickly getting out of their reach!" Starscream hissed, "Reevaluate your abilities next time you decide to-"

"Starscream leave him," Thundercracker spoke from his spot on the ground, "I think he's had enough." Starscream looked at Rumble again. His hands were in fists and he was shaking. "Besides," the blue flier continued, "_you_ should be thanking _him_. After all he gave you the opportunity to_ prove a point_ to the organics…Which I think we delivered really well."

Starscream hated when Thundercracker did that. When he acted like the voice of reason. But he knew he was right. He sighed and looked at the cassette again. "Don't do anything like this again."

"I don't think he'll get the chance anytime soon." Skywarp input. "They sure won't let us out for a while after this. Heh. _Wooorth iiiit!_" he singsonged.

Skywarp was, for once, right. Starscream himself doubted they would trust them out after this. If they did they'd be foolish, although he admitted he hoped for it. He hoped they had not just sealed the door of their cage forever. If so there was no doubt they will slowly go insane. If they were stuck for good it was inevitable. _Wooorth iiiit! _No, it really wasn't. But it needed to be done and he would do it again. _Would you? Wouldn't you be willing to act like a good pet when your sanity is at stake?_

Starscream shook his head. He needed to stop thinking like this or else he would drive himself mad sooner than expected. He needed proper things to think about, to take his mind off of the depressive what-ifs. He needed to ponder, to plan, to scheme. He needed facts to analyze.

"I presume you didn't find anything of importance when you searched the room?" he asked his wingmates, not really surprised when he received negative answers. "Figures." He rubbed his chin. How does one acquire facts? _Observation. _He turned his helmet to look at their captors. _Observe-receive facts-analyze._ He smirked. _Sounds like a plan. _"If anyone of you needs me I'll be in my quart-…well, I'll be up." He ignited his thrusters and flew to the top level of the cage.

"Okayy…What's he on about?" Skywarp questioned no one in particular.

Thundercracker only shrugged, he honestly didn't know, but for the sake of all of them he hoped Starscream was onto something.

***********tick tock**************

It has been two mega-cycles. It has been two mega-cycles since they let them out for the first time and- so far- for the last time. The creatures came and went, the smaller one- seemingly holding no grudge-occasionally sat next to the cage, chirping to them, while carrying out various activities- drawing, playing, even eating. They also continued to give them energon. But they didn't let them out and it didn't look like they were going to do it anytime soon. And it was starting to get to him.

Thundercracker was resting against the wall flexing his right hand in front of his optics. It was times like this he really felt it nagging in the back of his processors. Times when nothing was happening, times when Skywarp didn't bug him, times when there was nothing to do and nothing else to think about he really felt it was getting to him.

The seeker kind was notoriously known for their natural claustrophobia. But it wasn't the enclosed spaces themselves they feared. They feared what was brought with them which was sensory deprivation. Certain parts of cybertronian's central processors were meant for processing sensory data, they were meant for constant supply of information. The sensory deprivation was a result of no presence of data to process and, if constant, resulted in gradual degeneration of one's core processors. Seekers were extremely prone to this because of their built.

They were built for the skies, they were built to conquer them like no other cybertronians could. That is why seeker wings were interwoven with so many sensors, thousands and thousands of sensors solely designed to register any and every movement of air, changes in humidity, temperature, pressure. Other mechs had the highest concentration of sensors, touch sensors, on the tip of their fingers, for seekers it was their wings. That was why they were so prone to sensory deprivation- they had larger number of sensors than other cybertronians plus they were built to _only_ react to specific stimuli which the stagnant air of an enclosed space of any kind combined with no room to fly did not provide. In fact the phenomenon was so rare among others that it was generally only associated with seekers, thus the popularity of the term seeker psychosis in which it resulted.

The initial stages differed, but the outcome was always the same-madness. It came sooner or later, depending on the individual's psychological stability among other factors.

And Thundercracker felt it beginning. He was getting tics. Tics in his legs, neck, shoulders, hands-he flexed his other hand. He was also getting rushes of anger and urges to punch someone. Thankfully, so far he was able to hold those back.

He noticed it was affecting Skywarp too, although, it seemed, less. Then again, he didn't know what was happening inside his head. When the teleporter wasn't busying himself with all those games he and Rumble came up with there were times when Thundercracker caught him suddenly stopping in the middle of a movement for an astrosec or two or staring into distance for a few kliks.

He didn't know about Starscream. He only came down from the top when he needed to refuel. He shut the others out. When asked he only responded with "I'm busy." It could be the deprivation or it was just Starscream being…well, Starscream.

Thundercracker startled when a ball of energon goo whirled past his head and with a splat hit the wall.

"Sorry, TC! He ducked!" he turned to see Skywarp hunched over the bowl waving at him apologetically. The blue jet released a heavy sigh and got to his feet. He wasn't in the mood for Skywarp's antics, but he needed to do something. He looked up deciding it was time he tried to get something out of their red and white wingmate.

"Hey." he flew through the hole and landed on the top floor.

Starscream was sitting near the wall with his arms resting on his knees, intently staring out of the cage. "I'm busy." He said without sparing Thundercracker a glance.

"Busy with what?" Thundercracker rolled his optics, "Staring at an empty room?"

This time Starscream turned to glare at him. "I'm thinking."

"About what?" "About the meaning of life." "…really?" "No." Starscream spat and looked away again.

Thundercracker groaned. "C'mon, Starscream. Talk to me." When he received no response he continued. "All this…isolation. It can't be doing you…any good. You need to talk to us."

Starscream hung his head then looked at him contemplatively. He turned himself completely before speaking again. "I've been noticing things…"

Thundercracker, happy he got a proper response from the other, nodded encouragingly. "Like?"

"I've been observing their routines. They turn the lights on, they leave, they come again, spend some time here before turning off the lights. And again and again. The interesting thing is it takes them 5.1 joors before they repeat."

"Why is that interesting?"

"Because organics, take those on Earth for example, usually have their routines synced with their planet's rotation cycle, right? It takes this planet 14.3 joors to turn around its axis, which is almost three times longer than their cycles." He paused letting Thundercracker absorb the information. "What also doesn't add up is their imitation of day and night time by turning the lights on and off. And you know where we are currently located? Underground. Why would species naturally living underground bother imitating night and day? They wouldn't. Which means they didn't always live underground, they lived on the surface. And judging by the duration of their cycles-"

"It wasn't the surface of this planet…"

"Exactly." Starscream smiled.

"Are you telling me this is a race capable of space travel?" the blue jet shook his head in disbelief.

Starscream grinned. "They don't look like much, do they?"

"They don't." the blue jet was still shaking his head. "Why this planet, though? Why would a surface inhabiting race move to a planet with literally uninhabitable surface conditions? Why are they here?"

"Same reason as us. Energon." Starscream inclined his head in the general direction of the room. "Look at the lines connecting the lights in the wall and ceiling, their purple hue. They use it as fuel. And judging by our _dinners_ they know how to process it in more than one ways. They sacrificed their way of living for the endless reservoir of fuel."

"Well…" Thundercracker concluded. "You've really been busy."

"Told you." The air commander couldn't help the satisfied smirk that appeared on his features. But it was suddenly replaced with a frown as he stood up and started pacing, gesturing wildly with his arms. "But learning this only brought up much more questions! How were they able to disable us? How do they know our anatomy so well that they can do that? I have so many hypotheses about that! I think we were out for much longer than we thought and they studied us, pulling us apart and putting us together again, learning how we work. And maybe not!" he hit himself on the forehead, "I've been trying to think up an escape plan but I have so little to work with. How many of them is there? How far below are we? Is this a centralized colony? Air vents! We could use air vents! There should be some, they breathe, they need them, but we didn't find any in this room. And how do we find a way to the surface, how-HOW-"

"Whoa whoa whoa, Starscream calm down!" Thundercracker stood up and put his hands up in a placating gesture as Starscream started having what seemed to be a panic attack, continuously releasing sentences that were sounding more and more like nonsense. The blue jet grabbed him by the shoulders and shook. "Starscream! Snap OUT OF IT!" He looked him in the optics. It was apparent that Starscream, as him, wasn't left unaffected by their imprisonment.

Starscream stopped and stared at him for a while with wide surprised optics, his mouth slightly agape. After a moment he hung his head and shook Thundercracker's hands off of his shoulders. "I uh…" he stepped back from the blue jet, "I need to think, I need more answers…"

"No, Starscream." Thundercracker said resolutely. "Not like this. I'm not letting you stay here on your own, I'm gonna-" he hissed and grimaced as his left shoulder involuntary shot up, "I'm gonna drag you down if I have to." He exhaled to calm himself down, "Besides two heads are better than one. Maybe we can help you find some answers."

Starscream was looking at him with obvious sadness, he probably noticed his tic back there. It wasn't often that the air commander let his emotions show so clearly on his faceplates. "You do realize one of the heads is Skywarp's?" the red jet attempted a weak smile, it suddenly appeared he hadn't recharged for a while.

"Yeah, well…" Thundercracker shrugged, "it's something."

The air commander released a heavy exhale. "Alright…"

Thundercracker stepped aside and gestured to the hole in the floor with his hand. "After you."

Starscream gave him a wry look but complied and jumped down, the blue seeker following suit. They walked over to the bowl where Rumble and Skywarp were sitting no longer throwing the goo at each other.

"Hey you two grumpy bots!" Skywarp greeted them jovially. "Hope you're not gonna get 'busy' again Screamer 'cause me and Rumble, but mostly me-" "Hey!" "-just made up the best game ever!"

Before anyone could reply to that they heard the characteristic swoosh of the main door opening as their captors returned from wherever they had left to. Not three, but four creatures slithered in the room this time, causing the decepticons to share confused glances. Confusion was soon replaced with shock as they saw what one of the aliens was holding in its hand. There, sitting on its palm, another cybertronian was staring at them with wide blue optics.

* * *

><p>DundunDUN!<p>

The second part is the longest time I have managed to stay in one bot's POV, other times I just seem to jump from one to other as I please, so I consider this a progress! Meh :D.

Hope you guys like it! As always don't be afraid to notify me of any mistakes you find and tell me what you think!

I plan on updating once more in september but things...can...happen? Yeah. So until nexttime!


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